Battery Standby Drain and My Temporary Fix

[tshirttan408]

Hi Guys,

Having had an S7 Edge from when it was released, like many of you on these forums I've noticed standby battery drain steadily getting worse and worse. I've tried many workarounds right through to a factory reset to little avail. Anyway having looked through these forums I've noticed many of you have been experiencing the same problem, in particular on GSAM high cell stanby/wifi drain when the screen is turned off.

Anyway this morning I was looking at my location settings and saw Google Play Services was down as high usage. My location services are typically set to the most accurate (using GPS, WIFI and the mobile network) and are always turned on. Couple with this I've had the Wifi scanning turned off. I decided to try out location only set to GPS and winthin an hour or two was experiencing standby drain back to fresh out of the box. Obviously this isn't ideal as it's fiddly to change and google maps is pretty pants just using GPS, so what I've been doing is just keeping location settings off unless I need them. I'm now experiencing standby batter drain close to 1.5% (I work on the 32nd floor of a tower so signal isnt that strong up here).

So what I've come to assume is there is an app somewhere part of google play services which is constantly trying to access location, and by limiting it's ability to do so I've kind of nullified it. I understand this isn't a solution, and more of a work around, and a lot of people will have already worked it out but for those who haven't try it out and might work for you. Hopefully there may be a fix which will actually go to the root of the problem.

 

[SpookDroid]

Actually it might be the fact that you work on a 32nd floor with no strong signal that's the culprit. When you limit the location services to just GPS, any app that polls for location frequently (maps, weather updates, Google Now, etc.) will want to know where you are. Before, it used GPS and when the phone can't get a lock (as it's the case inside most buildings), it went on to scan for known WiFis and ping the mobile tower for a location range (this is the most draining as your phone will be 'screaming' to reach the low-signal tower and straining to 'hear' what the tower comes back with). When you limit the location to just GPS, the phone sees no signal lock and then it stops, so looking for WiFi or weak mobile signals is no longer being performed.

Should you do this outside, you should see no difference between just GPS or 'High Accuracy' mode. So either do what you did and limit location accuracy, or see which apps are polling for your location and limit those (weather and Google Now are usually the biggest culprits).

 

[tshirttan408]

Actually it might be the fact that you work on a 32nd floor with no strong signal that's the culprit. When you limit the location services to just GPS, any app that polls for location frequently (maps, weather updates, Google Now, etc.) will want to know where you are. Before, it used GPS and when the phone can't get a lock (as it's the case inside most buildings), it went on to scan for known WiFis and ping the mobile tower for a location range (this is the most draining as your phone will be 'screaming' to reach the low-signal tower and straining to 'hear' what the tower comes back with). When you limit the location to just GPS, the phone sees no signal lock and then it stops, so looking for WiFi or weak mobile signals is no longer being performed.

Should you do this outside, you should see no difference between just GPS or 'High Accuracy' mode. So either do what you did and limit location accuracy, or see which apps are polling for your location and limit those (weather and Google Now are usually the biggest culprits).

I thought that would be the case, but even over the weekend or when I'm working from home I still get the same level of drain. much more than I've experienced today. strange!

 

[tshirttan408]

Just as an update, on my commute into work today with location settings off, using spotify and instagram as well as being on the tube for 20 minutes all the while with my bluetooth headphones connected my battery drain was significantly less than usual. I'd normally get into the office with about 90% of my battery left and today arrived with 95%.

 

[SpookDroid]

Location Settings Off? Then yeah, that'd save a ton of battery as no apps will be able to poll for your location. Question is, is it worth it? I like having the 'magic' of Google Now knowing when I need to leave for work or home and giving me alternate routes if there's traffic, know which places I might be visiting and giving suggestions, but for it to do that, it needs to poll for my location periodically (and quite frequently). I know it drains battery, but the trade-off, for me, is worth it. If you limit the location history, the accuracy of the suggestions will definitely not be as good and will be more reactive pulling data from events in your calendar and basic home/work history than being actively suggesting things based on your location history.